Trzebinia Jewish Cemetery

The Trzebinia Jewish cemetery is located about 350 metres south of the market square, on the west side of Słowackiego Street, and covers a plot of land shaped like an elongated rectangle with an area of approximately 0.45 hectares. The cemetery was established in 1815. In the following years, local rabbis and tzadiks – Mosze Jona Lewi (died 1843), Izrael Kluger and Chaim Kluger (died 1869), and Awraham Lewi (died 1895) – were buried in the cemetery. An ohel was built over their graves. In the interwar period, the cemetery was fenced and there was a funeral house at the entrance. The cemetery was in use until World War II. People who died and were killed in the forced labour camp in Trzebionka were buried there. During the war, the cemetery was devastated and continued to degrade in the following decades. From 1945 until at least the end of 1946, the Jewish Committee in Trzebinia looked after the cemetery. On February 14, 1946, a monument was erected over the mass grave of the Holocaust victims. In the list of Jewish cemeteries compiled by the Office for Religious Affairs in 1981, in the case of Trzebinia, it was stated: “The stone fence is destroyed in 50%. Tombstones are overturned. The area is overgrown with bushes.” Between the 1980s and 1990s, cleaning work was carried out in the cemetery at the initiative of the Landsmanshaft of Trzebinia Jews. In the cemetery, there are about 250 tombstones in various conditions in the cemeteries (the list is available at https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/krakow/chrzanow_tymbinia/Trzeb_Cemetery.htm) and the ohel was rebuilt in 1990. In the southern part of the cemetery, the foundation of the demolished funeral house is preserved. The area is fenced with a stone wall. The ownership status of the cemetery is unclear. The cemetery is listed in the Municipal and Provincial Register of Monuments and the Register of Immovable Monuments of the Małopolskie Voivodeship.

The first records of Jews in Trzebinia date back to the 16th century, though significant development of the Jewish community only took place after 1731. In 1921, 1,100 Jews lived in the town (22.9% of the total population), most of whom were killed by the Germans in KL Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II.